Before these little cheesecakes, my cheesecake experience was solely and shamelessly limited to this — the seven-ingredient recipe on the back of the Philadelphia cream cheese box. It was five ingredients if you bought the Keebler crust in its own ready-to-go tin, which my college self definitely did, it was easy, and it was good; sometimes I swirled blueberry jam or pumpkin pie filling (the recipe from the Libby’s pumpkin can, naturally) into it and felt fancy even though the pumpkin burned faster than the cheesecake could cook.

The first time I had a Dough doughnut was at a little sun-drenched picnic about a year ago. Linda graced us with a floppy box brimming with gems from this shop I’d previously never heard of (I live under a rock) and they looked glorious — plump and squashy, stacked two levels deep on sticky wax paper and cloaked in crackly, dripping glazes of all colors and flavors.

Overwhelmed by choice, I just went for the one with the prettiest color (because I evidently judge both books and carbs by their covers). It was an enormous and aggressively magenta beauty that turned out to be, as you might have guessed, hibiscus — and it was totally magnificent. The mouth-puckering brightness from the hibiscus is a perfect balance for the decadence of fried dough, and keeps it addictive long after chocolate or dulce de leche might have gotten heavy. Which was both a good and terrible thing, since I started with a lady-like half (ha) and ended up finishing a whole, another half … and the other half of that half. So crazy good.

Figs are here! We finally had our first figs of the year this weekend, and words cannot adequately express how excited I am. I feel like my first fig sighting is always one of the best days of the summer, even if it means fall isn’t far away, but this year I’ve been even more eager than usual to catch a glimpse of those plump little soldiers standing in their neat, blue-purple rows under the awning at our favorite produce store.

Hi friends! Can I say I missed you guys? I know it’s only been a week, but somehow it feels longer since I last sat down for a peek into the blog world. Maybe because it’s been a smidge hectic around here lately. That seems to be the case for every lawyer-type friend I know these days, which is a weird thing for the middle of a hazy hot summer. But there’s usually a mass exodus in August where every other partner disappears on vacation and the firm falls into a sleepy lull that seems more fitting for the summertime — so I guess the rush might be getting everything in order before, as they say, the cats go away. (And the mouse can sit on her computer and read blogs.)

We’re back! So far, married life has mostly consisted of (a) jet lag, (b) coffee, and (c) delivery pizza. Our first morning back we woke up at 3 AM, B2 played video games in our brightly-lit living room against a pitch-black window and it felt like a super fun sleepover all-nighter, and then we spent the more mundane mornings after that consuming about sixteen cups of coffee and a pound of cheesy bread (leftover from delivery pizza, of course) for breakfast because post-wedding diet. On Monday I went back to work and discovered that nothing much had changed in my three weeks away, except that my office door now sticks in the door jamb and appears as reluctant to let me in as I am to enter. Mysteriously expanding doors aside, it’s not like we really expected anything to change — but somehow things do feel just the slightest bit different now that we’re married. In the best way. (Maybe it’s the carbs.)

It’s almost here! We’re actually, really, truly getting married this Saturday and I’m so excited I can’t sit still. This is the last post in this series on our reception food, and after that I’ll finally stop yammering to you about it — in three days, we’ll be noshing on these caramelized onion & Boursin tartlets, this spicy ahi poke parfaitini, and slicing into a real-people version of this cake, among other things (like a rosemary-perfumed short rib and vibrant purple Okinawan sweet potato puree, be still my heart). And as our wedding favors, we’ll be handing out this last recipe!

Early mornings in the summer are my favorite. That cool, crisp sheen over everything, a dewy freshness that heat and humidity haven’t quashed yet. I used to dog-sit for our neighbors back in the 7th or 8th grade, and while you couldn’t find me up before 11 any other morning, on those days I’d roll out of bed and pad across the driveway in the rosy dawn to let Buddy out and feed him breakfast. Those mornings I sat and waited on the stoop for him to come back in, dew from the grass clinging to the tops of my feet, I’d feel buoyed by the thought of a whole day stretching long and open ahead of me — a wide world of dense, lazy, baking-hot summer to come. For that moment, though, it was just stillness. Sleepy anticipation on a misty summer morning.

It’s the last installment in B2’s birthday series! You can see parts one (hurricane popcorn!) and two (chicken katsu plate lunch!) here.

These babes aren’t something that B2 actually ever requested I make — I think I mentioned homemade malasadas once, way back, and B2 chewed on the idea and said it just sounded like too much work to make at home. Usually, when he says he’s not so into something, I take it at face value (or else things happen like I know you said you didn’t want Oreos but, Oreos! And they were on sale! and then I have a pack of Oreos to finish by myself. It’s true, there are worse problems to have.) But I figure the thing about birthdays is that, hey, it’s nice to get something you didn’t have to ask for. And there are things that you might like a lot more than you suspect. As it turns out, a platter of warm, yielding, airy malasadas filled with smooth pastel curd, the kind that brings back B2’s childhood memories of school carnivals and afternoon runs to famed neighborhood bakeries, is one of those things.

It’s been a happy couple of weeks in the Bowl household. We’re as susceptible to worries and stress and anxieties as the next people (okay, probably more), but in the worst of it we’ll still look at each other, tucked under a gigantically fluffy comforter in the soft weeknight darkness, and say, but you know … we have it so good. It’s so tempting to forget, but we do. Family, friends, good food, each other. These past few weeks have seen a couple snags — a nasty stomach bug, lingering springtime sniffles — but they’ve been packed with so many happy things that we’ve barely noticed. B2 gave me the biggest surprise of my life when he flew my brother in to visit for the weekend (I was so shocked, guys, I opened the door and didn’t recognize my little bro for like ten seconds) and we’ve been seeing our fair share of his side of the family too, cousins with gleeful toddlers and gummy-smile’d babies, aunts and uncles in town for Easter, brunches and laugh-filled dinners galore. I love it. I’m the sappiest, but family always makes me so happy.

I have a chocolate chip snacking problem. It’s those cheap, sweet ones that get me, the bags that always end up on sale at the grocery store, where I buy like four bags (because, sale) and then I end up getting home from work each day and standing at the refrigerator with the door open for a good 10 minutes, just munching. Sometimes I try to save myself (and them) by mixing them in with the good stuff, the 60%-and-up cacao content types that are a tad too pricey for me to go stealing them from their baked good destinations, and then all that happens is that I stand at the fridge for even longer fishing out the little cheap ones from all the rest.